When you close your mouth, your teeth are supposed to come together evenly. When they don’t, it causes excess stress on your teeth, jawbone, jaw joints and muscles. Bruxism, which involves you clenching grinding your teeth, can magnify the problem.

Fortunately, an occlusal adjustment can help correct this problem. An occlusal adjustment is done to help correct the alignment of your bite. The procedure involves reshaping your teeth with a dental drill, removing interferences. These interferences can keep your teeth from coming together, and can also prevent your jaw from automatically closing into the correct position. When your jaw isn’t able to close into its anatomical position, the muscles in your jaw and neck are never able to fully relax, resulting in headaches, neck aches and toothaches. Many patients also develop bruxism because their jaw is seeking the correct bite alignment. Bite guards can help patients with bruxism by protecting their teeth and TMJ (jaw joint).

Bite guards, also called occlusal guards, are important for people that grind their teeth at night. Bite guards can also be useful to protect dental work, decrease symptoms, allow jaw alignment and act as a guide for occlusal adjustments. Patients that grind and clench their teeth may cause:

Wear, fractures or chipping of teeth

Bone and gum recession

Loose or shifting teeth

Damage to dental bridges or dental implants

Sensitive areas on teeth or gums

Worsening of gum disease

Sore muscles, headaches and noises when opening or closing your mouth

If you’re interested in learning more about dental implants, contact Dr. Wetzel in Camp Hill, PA at 717-761-8611 to schedule an appointment today or visit our website at www.wetzelperio.com for more information.

Dr. Wetzel proudly welcomes patients from New Cumberland, Harrisburg, York and Carlisle and all surrounding areas.

It is never fun to wake up with a headache, and a lot of times, grinding your teeth while you sleep is a common occurrence. You visit the dentist and now you have a mouth guard to wear while you sleep to help prevent your headaches.

For those that don’t know, a night guard is a mouthpiece that is custom fitted to your mouth to help a myriad of dental problems, such as help relieve the systems of TMJ or bruxism. Now when it comes to getting used to your new night guard, you should follow the following instructions:

First off, ask your dentist to start out with a thin night guard, since it’ll take up less bulk in your mouth and will be easier to get used to. They can fabricate both an upper and lower night guard to see which one you find more comfortable. In many cases, it’s merely a function of whether it’s an upper or lower that determines one’s comfort and acceptance of the dental device.

Put your night guard in right before you go to bed to lessen the chances that you’ll find it bothersome. Hang in there for at least 30 days so that you can get used to the night guard. If you use it a few hours here and there, it’s not going to work.

Considering that a night guard doesn’t fix the dental problem, getting to the bottom of why you are grinding or clenching will provide the best results in the long run because wearing a night guard won’t do anything but protect your teeth.

If you’re interested in learning more about night guards, contact Dr. Wetzel in Camp Hill, PA at 717-761-8611 to schedule an appointment today or visit our website at www.wetzelperio.com for more information.

Dr. Wetzel proudly welcomes patients from New Cumberland, Harrisburg, York and Carlisle.

When your teeth don’t come together evenly, it causes excess stress on your teeth, jawbone, jaw joints and muscles. This can result in headaches, neck aches and toothaches. When your jaw isn’t able to close into its anatomical position, the muscles in your jaw and neck are never able to fully relax. Bite guards, or occlusal guards, can help patients with bruxism by protecting their teeth and TMJ (jaw joint). If any of these symptoms are familiar to you, you may need to see your dentist. They have a few ways to help.

An occlusal adjustment is a procedure that is done to correct the alignment of the bite, typically a result of loose, shifting, crowded or missing teeth. The procedure is performed to remove interferences with a fine stone dental drill. These interferences keep teeth from coming together & jaws from closing.

Another option to this affliction is the use of a bite guards for those that grind their teeth at night. Bite guards can also be useful to protect dental work, decrease symptoms, allow jaw alignment and act as a guide for occlusal adjustments. It is also particularly important because patients that grind and clench their teeth may cause:

Wear, fractures or chipping of teeth

Bone and gum recession

Loose or shifting teeth

Damage to dental bridges or dental implants

Sensitive areas on teeth or gums

Worsening of gum disease

Sore muscles, headaches and noises when opening or closing your mouth

If you’re interested in learning more about occlusal afflictions, contact Dr. Wetzel in Camp Hill, PA at 717-761-8611 to schedule an appointment today or visit our website at www.wetzelperio.com for more information.

Dr. Wetzel proudly welcomes patients from New Cumberland, Harrisburg, York and Carlisle.